How To Refinish Wrought Iron Patio Furniture

Mustard pickles are a yummy treat. This recipe is quick and easy to make – and it’s oh, so, delicious.

Rachel Platt in the 'Chained to Tech' Tatton Garden. Image Source: Julie Skelton Photography. 

Propagating wandering jew plants is very easy and makes a cost-effective way to expand your collection.

When the weather is fine, a backyard patio becomes an outdoor living room for many homeowners. But when the weather is not fine, the poor furniture bears the brunt of it.

Marigolds are super easy to grow and the perfect care-free bedding plant for containers, borders and mass plantings. If you need a lot of plants, you can save seed from spent flowers and grow them yourself next year to save money. Since marigolds reseed in the garden easily all by themselves, leave a few dried flowers to drop seed. Keep in mind t

HOW REVOLUTIONARY ARE WE FEELING at the moment? If not sufficiently so to occupy Wall Street or another downtown, then what about to occupy our front yards (and side yards and backyards and decks and balconies) with food gardens? In this talk at the TED-Dirigo conference (dirigo is the state motto of Maine, where the conference was held, and means, appropriately, “I lead”), Kitchen Gardeners International founder Roger Doiron proposes we help solve the earth’s biggest problem–food supply–one subversive plot at a time.

I called Dennis in late September, as my Zone 5B weather threatened to frost, because he has more experience with carrying over stock of tropicals and sub-tropicals than anyone else I know, after operating Landcraft Environments, a specialist in unusual tender things, since 1992. (Our conversation was the Sept. 23, 2013 edition of my public-radio show and podcast, and is summed up below with all his advice.)The to-the-trade business, located on the North Fork of Long Island in Mattituck, resulted from what Dennis calls, “a hobby that went wild,” a love of houseplants that led him to school for landscape design and nursery/greenhouse management, and eventually to start a design business and then the wholesale operation with his partner, Dennis Smith. Bold, colorful foliage is a signature of the Landcraft online catalog (which you can use as an inspirational encyclopedia of plants worth lusting over, even if you can’t shop there directly).“We’re kind of foliage-driven,” says Dennis, “a

Joybird

Transform your home into a flourishing garden with the Most Productive Vegetables for a Balcony and Patio Garden, ensuring a plentiful yield in limited space and enhancing your green thumb experience.

This easy table modification all started because we live in cow country and where you have cows, you have flies. They drive me crazy in the summer so I am always looking for ways to deter them. The other day I was at OSH and the sales lady said that most herbs are a natural fly repellent. That got me thinking and this project was born. Now the jury is still out if this works on the flies but I love the end results anyway.

This past weekend I was able to do a little hocus pocus and turned an old, dilapidated iron bench and table thingy into a pretty magical chair and ottoman. This set was generously given to me by a good friend. (Thank you, Kirk!)

Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University are partnering with us in our technology addiction project that stands alongside our 'Chained to Tech' garden design. At RHS Tatton Flower Show, researchers will be surveying guests to gauge their attitudes and perceptions towards our garden.